1984 By George Orwell
Big Brother is watching you
About the book George Orwell (25 June 1903 - 21 January 1950) 8th June 1949 Dystopian Novel Totalitarian State based on Soviet Union & Nazi Germany Based in England The Party – thought police, 2 Minutes of Hate Follow Winston Smith Fun Fact: It has 42 different covers!
2 + 2 = 5
NY Times original review: “a work of pure horror, and its horror is crushingly immediate.” The masterpiece that killed George Orwell Turned in 1984 into a film by Michael Radford https://youtu.be/Z4rBDUJTnNU
Adaptation into a play BY ROBERT ICKE & DUNCAN MACMILLAN
https://youtu.be/63WuTuIBRTk
War is peace Freedom is slavery Ignorance is strength
Original Cast & Crew WINSTON O’BRIEN CHARRINGTON MARTIN SYME PARSONS MRS PARSONS JULIA Mark Arends Tim Dutton Stephen Fewell Christopher Patrick Nolan Matthew Spencer Gavin Spokes Mandi Symonds Hara Yannas DESIGN LIGHTING SOUND VIDEO ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR CASTING DIRECTOR TRAINEE DIRECTOR ANIMAL HANDLER Chloe Lamford Natasha Chivers Tom Gibbons Tim Reid Daniel Raggett Ginny Schiller CDGC Ross Levy EAB Animals
Directors ROBERT ICKE DUNCAN MACMILLAN Award-winning writer & director Associate Director at Almeida The Fever; Mr Burns Adaptation of Orestia – transferred to West End, 2015 DUNCAN MACMILLAN Award-winning writer & director Plays: Lungs; Every Brilliant Thing; 2071 People, Places and Things – transferred to West End, 2016
STC Artistic Director Michael Kahn talks about 1984 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J1_LqAPfkQ
Sanity is not statistical
Reviews Michael Billington – 4/5 “The big innovation is to treat Orwell’s appendix on the Principles of Newspeak as a vital part of the story” “fierce intelligence” “I worry that the theatre is rapidly becoming a place of dramatisations rather than original drama” “Chillingly relevant” “disorientating and disconcerting” “not always easy to watch, but impossible to look away from” – 4/5 “Depressingly relevant and brilliantly discomfiting – 5/5” “fizzes with sinister energy” “highly stylised, and some might say overproduced” “utterly disturbing” “modern masterpiece” – 5 stars https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/may/07/new-theatre-production-orwell-1984-chillingly-relevant http://britishtheatre.com/review-1984-playhouse-theatre-4stars/ https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/feb/16/1984-review http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2016-06-29/1984-theatre-review-depressingly-relevant-and-brilliantly-discomfiting
Significant Staging & Effects STRONG LIGHT & SOUND COMBINATION “Lighting, sound and video design (…) both shock the senses and achieve swift transitions between past, present and future”
Who controls the past controls the future Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
Themes Dangers of Totalitarianism Psychological Manipulation Physical Control Control of information & history Language as mind control TECHNOLOGY
Marketing
It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words Read extracts